Crédit Agricole takes safe route by leaving the acquisition trail

The Wall Street Journal Europe

Updated March 6, 2008 12:01 a.m. ET

CR&Eacute;DIT AGRICOLE managed to record a &euro;4 billion ($6.08 billion) profit for 2007, despite &euro;3.3 billion of write-downs. In a nutshell, that's the staid mutual bank's story. The final write-down was &euro;800 million more than originally announced, and net profit was down 17% from the previous year. More than a few banks would be content with as much -- or as little.

The beauty of Cr&eacute;dit Agricole's mutual structure is that the Caisses R&eacute;gionales, local French banks which...